The Seekers of Fire

by Lynna Merrill

  And only the Master knew how much he was fighting against the lot of a High Lord.

  Rianor had reached the end of the wall. It did not have a single crack, despite its ugly appearance. He traced a cleaner spot on the edge with a gloved finger, then withdrew in discomfort. Somehow he was more perceptive after seeing the waterwell, and he did not like the feeling the wall gave him. Damn the Bers. The wall had really endured. Rianor would learn what they had done and how, and for the first time in his life he had a person who might provide a path to that knowledge. His new apprentice could do some of the things that Bers could do—or perhaps some of the things that they could not do, and thus feared—and Rianor had succeeded in taking her first.

  She even had Science skills of her own and was willing to consciously help him. She was quite interesting, too, fiercely fighting for herself and against the role society had tried to impose on her. Last night she had even fought for Rianor.

  He smiled, then took the narrow alley beside the fashion store and walked faster. Linden was currently safe in Qynnsent, but he needed a Ber to make it official. Under different circumstances it would have been better if she had come with him, but now it was out of the question. Desmond had come up with a story about the reluctance of the High Lord of the great House Qynnsent to be seen with a woman that was not yet officially noble, and since most of the noble fools would believe it, Rianor had accepted.

  The narrow alley would end at the next corner, and if Rianor turned to the left and passed a small open space, he would find himself right in Temple Square, out of the repulsive backstreets that lords and ladies did not enter.

  Or that most lords and ladies did not enter. Another young lord was currently leaning against a wall right behind the corner, attended by two Fireheart serving girls who seemed to enjoy his attention. Of all the bastards Rianor was bound to meet in the Fireheart, Donald of Waltraud was the last one he wanted to stumble upon in a back alley. Rianor drew his dagger and stepped carefully forward, causing one of Waltraud's women to stop rocking rhythmically and to remove her legs from around her lord's waist. Waltraud slapped her before he turned to face the intruder, and the two men glared at each other while the woman pulled her skimpy dress back to her thighs and stared. The other one was buttoning her blouse and backing away to a door a little further. The women did not bear themselves as if the situation a minute ago had been against their wishes.

  "Do forgive the interruption." Rianor nodded in the direction of the three figures and slightly lowered his dagger as he tried to pass them. A hand grabbed his shoulder a moment later, and a punch barely missed his ribs just as he lurched back, one of his hands fixing the offender's to the shoulder he was still gripping. Rianor's other hand snatched Donald's elbow immediately after, Rianor shifting his own body to pull and unbalance his opponent, pressing against the elbow-joint. The force was just enough to give the bastard a choice: he could either fall face down on the ground and lie still, his elbow and arm at Rianor's mercy, or he could first resist and then fall, the elbow already broken.

  Donald chose to keep the elbow. Rianor pressed a knee at his back as he fell heavily forward, then Rianor twisted both his enemy's arms to prevent further movement. Donald coughed, emitting a reek of alcohol mixed with something suspicious, and Rianor laughed without humor.

  "I would like to see the High Lord of Waltraud's face when he learns about his heir's latest dalliance with a certain kind of women and substances."

  "I would like to see his face when I kill you," the man growled, and Rianor resisted an impulsive reply to a meaningless provocation.

  Even if Donald were in a position to kill the High Lord of Qynnsent, he would probably not do it, for House Waltraud would be the first suspected, and the Bers would not let a crime at that level pass. Or, Donald's father, at least, would never perform such an act of stupidity. Donald and his mother, on the other hand, did not possess the old man's values or intellect, and Donald's sister was known to have murdered her betrothed.

  Anyway, if anyone was in a position to get rid of an enemy now, it was Rianor, but even if Donald was not a High Lord yet, Rianor was not as devoid of sense as to do it. The two serving girls had run away the moment Donald had attacked him, and even if Rianor was gone before someone came to see what was happening, soon the whole Fireheart would know that the two lords had been fighting.

  Cursing silently, Rianor used Donald's belt and cravat to tie his hands and gag him. He did not feel like killing, anyway. The Mentor yesterday had been more than enough. He pulled the young Waltraud lord back to his feet, then ushered him in the direction of the temple.

  Linden

  Day 78 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705

  The second time Linden awakened there was something heavy pressed over her legs. She tried to shift away, and the heavy object growled in disagreement, treading her waist to lick her face. She placed a hand to protect her breasts from inadvertent paws while her other hand scratched behind the newly perked ears.

  "I love you, too," she murmured, smiling, realizing that her maids were in the room only when they giggled. Clare reached out to rearrange her pillows, petting Blake absentmindedly.

  "He had become quite fond of you, my lad—Lind. He does not become friends with everybody, you know. No, Blake, you great monster!" Clare snapped her hand back as Blake playfully nibbled her sleeve, then flushed apologetically. He regarded her with puppy indignation, then lowered his head to Linden's shoulder.

  "Nan says that he seems to like you more than anyone but the High Lord," Felice added as Linden placed an arm around him. "I'll call her now if you don't mind. She said to do it when you awakened."

  "Please do." Linden kissed Blake's nose and threw the covers away, stretching carefully. Her leg felt better, and although her muscles were sore, it was not too painful. She rose from the bed and then sat on the carpet, stretching both legs in front of herself, then slowly spread them long to the sides. She took several deep breaths, then raised her hands high over her head and bent her body first forward and then back, and finally low over each of her legs. The feeling of soreness lessened, and she proceeded with several other exercises, until Nan's disgruntled voice startled her, just as she had started doing push-ups.

  "This is no exercise for you. You should round up a little, not thin your body further."

  "Oh, Nan, lady Lind is perfect like this. I wish I looked slender like her!"

  Linden rose, regarding both Nan and Clare with amusement.

  "No, Nan, I don't want to 'round up.' And what exactly is your problem, Clare? You certainly look slender to me."

  Clare sadly glanced at the tray Nan had brought. "Oh, not enough, my lady, and I haven't had cake for sixty days now ..."

  The cake was large and enticing, with a thick layer of white cream and strawberries, and Linden suddenly realized that she was ravenous. Clare looked as if she were ravenous, too, and as if she could not decide whether the cake had come from her most treasured dreams or her nightmares. Linden beamed. "I do not want to insult you, but this has not been exactly wise of you. Come here now, there seems to be enough for everybody. Right, Felice, Nan?"

  Clare's face twisted in pure suffering, but Felice clapped her hands in delight, and Nan's shrewd eyes glittered with approval.

  "A lady concerned for her maids is a lady to treasure," the old woman murmured as she started cutting the cake, while Linden stepped forward and put an arm around Clare. Clare was fighting tears.

  "I will teach you the exercises, so that you can stay slim without starving yourself. The trick is to exercise, and to eat what you want and as much you want, but no more than you really want to. It sounds easy, but in the beginning it is not, for your body has probably learned some detrimental habits you need to get rid of ... I can help you with that. Rather, I can help you start helping yourself. Felice, should I teach you, too?"

  "Oh yes, lady Lind—me, and Lettie, and lady Jen, too. Lettie says that lady Jen had eaten only cabbages for
six days now, and has become very irritable ..."

  "And it is none of your business what lady Jen is doing, and none of Lettie's to tell you. You know how I disapprove of gossip." Nan frowned at Felice, then frowned at the tray.

  "You girls should all eat at least some chicken and vegetables before the cake, and this is becoming all too messy for lady Lind's bedroom. Clare, go set the table in her living room now. Lind dear, you'll catch a cold with this nightdress. Here, put this on for now, and I have something nicer for after you've bathed. Felice, you come here and tell me if Lettie knows whether lady Jen might be pregnant."

  Linden chuckled, trying to wrap the robe Nan had given her around herself, while Blake did his best to unwrap it. Nan definitely disapproved of gossip. Most definitely. It was interesting whether they were already discussing Linden like that lady ... Suddenly, Linden's hands tensed and she struggled with the button she was trying to fasten.

  Who was that lady?

  "Lettie would not ask now, Nan," Felice was saying, "with the lady's temper so brittle. First, the cabbages, and then the lord left this morning without even telling her."

  Nan saved the poor button at the last moment, catching Linden's stiff fingers just before they would have snapped it.

  "Let me help with this, dear." She fastened the button, then examined Linden's face and placed a hand on her forehead. "Now you've gone white. You shouldn't do push-ups, I tell you."

  The old woman's eyes were a little too knowing, and Linden jerked her own eyes away to avoid them, biting her lip in an attempt to swallow her sudden anger. She stared at the Qynnsent banner on the wall, instead. Then her eyes strained almost to tears, for the banner transformed—until she blinked and the strange image was lost to her. Like last night, in the scullery.

  "Lady Jenelly is lord Desmond's wife, dear," Nan said smugly as she stroked Linden's temple, "and I don't understand her maniacal diets. You know, they're our only noble couple, and I wish she'd stop starving and think about a baby."

  Linden slowly smiled, fastening the next button without help.

  "Nan, she should not have a baby if she does not want to," she murmured, then blinked again and shifted her head to change the angle between her eyes and the banner. "But if she wishes, I can try to help her stop starving."

  Linden

  Night 78 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705

  Linden awoke again, alone, to large raindrops splattering against the windows. Torrents had deluged the outside world into a mass of moonrays and semi-darkness, and somewhere up on the roof the wind howled.

  A wild winter rainstorm. Linden shivered as she sat in the bed. In this season, rainstorms happened rarely and only when the two moons shone round and full together in the sky—and even at double Fullfire-Moons it was snow, not rain, that the winds usually brought.

  She shivered again, as her bare feet met the cool carpet. The room was not cold, but there were goosebumps on her skin, and somehow her very mind felt cold, especially when a cloud passed beneath the moons. It became dark outside, and even the light of all four sleep candles inside seemed meager and faint. She had only had one sleep candle at Mom and Dad's, but it had been enough.

  "A foul night of dark storm and Fullfire-Moons, when mori haunt the crossroads and paths lead to doom."

  Those were not cheerful words. Where had she seen them? In some fairytale, probably, and long ago, for she did not remember the tale itself. It must have given little Linden adventurous shivers under the light of the Sun, and shivers much more unpleasant at night, when Mom and Dad slept and could not keep mori, real or not, away from the girl wide awake in her bed.

  She felt like that little girl now, but Mom and Dad were far away. She was trembling, and her forehead felt hot to her icy hand. A knot of tension had formed in her stomach and another one pulsed in her chest. Was she sick again? Earlier, she had been well enough. Earlier, she had not been afraid. But afraid of what? If samodivi were real, mori could definitely be real as well, but Linden did not fear exactly them. It was something else. Something happening ... Or, perhaps, more than one thing.

  "Keep control now," Linden whispered, to herself, as she staggered towards the window. Her voice sounded thin and weak and was almost instantly swallowed by the curtains. They were large and heavy, pulled aside to reveal the glass, their green and silver plush falling from the carved gypsum ceiling to the floor. There was enough space behind them for a body to hide.

  Mori, samodivi, Bers, Mentors, other faceless foes. For a moment she saw them all—behind the curtains, in the closet, under the bed; saw their gruesome smiles as shadows from the sleep candles danced over the banner's picture and the ceiling's twisted shapes.

  She had slashed her mom's curtains torn with scissors once, many years ago, after they had suddenly rippled with the night's wind. She wanted to do the same now, overwhelmed by almost forgotten childhood fears. "Dark and hidden places, holding things unseen." Linden staggered a step back, her hands clenched before her chest as if that would keep the fears at bay.

  Why was she so afraid? Perhaps because she was alone in a strange room, in a strange house, full of strange people. Even the man who had brought her was not here now. Yes, she had walked in a very dark, hidden place with lord Rianor; she had fought a creature that was not supposed to exist with him. But it all seemed vague tonight. It had happened only the night before, but in the storm and curtain-dominated shadows it seemed long ago and the man almost unreal.

  "Stop that, I am not six years old any more."

  But the six-year-old, rebellious and Science-minded, had at least known her "truth" that nothing she feared in the night was real. The grown-up Linden knew naught of the kind.

  A gust of wind and water hit the window just as the moons floated from behind the cloud and the curtains rippled. Linden wanted to scream and run. Instead, she thrust the door to the balcony open. Chilly raindrops drenched her face and hair while the wind flapped her gown. Trees reached their bare branches towards her, wet, ghastly moonlight dancing on the shiny brown bark.

  Fairytales said that winter storms were born when the Wind Moon kissed the Moon of Rain. Thus wild snow was born, or rare, wild rain, when the Rain Moon's passion was so strong that it made the snow clouds melt.

  "So what are you so passionate about tonight?" Linden whispered to the sky, the fear inside her pulsing with every raindrop's prickle. She was afraid, but she felt the water, too—and she felt the storm with its wind gusts, darkness, charged clouds, and blurred rays of moonlight. She felt the passion.

  Linden's new bedroom was large and airy, with five windows, its own balcony, and sleep candles on every wall. Yet, suddenly it was much too dark, small, and confining. And suddenly she saw the white-clad figure of a man, moving in what looked like a strange blend of fighting movements and a dance, all by himself down below in the stormy garden.

  She grabbed the coat Nan had left for her and ran downstairs as if in a dream. She wondered how she knew the exact way only when she was already three levels down, before the massive door that lead out in the garden. Well, a thinking person could certainly find the way if she thought—if she made herself remember where the stairs were in the big corridor, even though the entrance to the staircase was not obvious. Now was the first time since last night that Linden was out of her suite, but if she thought about it, she could even trace the long and confusing way between her suite and the scullery. She would not get lost too easily in this House. Not if she thought about what she was doing.

  Admittedly, she knew that right now she was not thinking enough.

  Outside, the storm's smell blended with that of wet soil and dry, fallen leaves, and water poured over Linden's shoulders, under her collar, and beneath her eyelids. Water ... Linden felt Magic and still a trace of fear, and a desire to run in the rain almost took control of her feet, followed by almost as strong a desire to dance like the man a hundred steps away from her.

  Linden stood absolutely still. Other forces had tried
to bend her legs, before. They had not succeeded. She stood still, and Magic that she did not know, did not understand, lived in her.

  Magic or whatever this recklessness is, I will keep control over it. She leaned on a tall, stalwart tree to steady herself and watched the man and the rain. It will not control me. Ever.

  The man was not Rianor, like she had hoped; he was not her midnight proof that last night had been real. She knew it the second she saw him turn towards her, a moment before with inhuman speed he appeared five steps away from where she stood.

  He was shorter than Rianor and very, very old, but he did not move stiffly like an old man. He stepped towards her in a flowing motion of confidence and grace, and the brown eyes that met hers were some of the most intelligent she had ever seen—and kindest.

  "You are afraid," he said in a quiet but distinct voice, a voice that was one with the soil and moons and rain, and with the deep roots of the tree she was embracing.

  Who are you? Linden wanted to reply, but stroked the tree bark and straightened herself, instead, then looked into those old, deep eyes and tried to not fall inside them.

  "Yes, I am afraid." Her words felt wet and flowing, as rainwater trickled inside her mouth. "It is dark but for the light of the moons, and even that the rain mostly dissipates." Is it darkness that I truly fear? And why am I telling him?

  "It is dark." The old man smiled—a kind smile. "And you know not what lurks in the darkness. You only know what you think might. But what you think, child, is only in your mind. What you fear is not out in the darkness—but inside you."

  Linden laughed—a nervous laugh, for what he had offered her was aberrant thoughts that were new to her and yet rang too true to her ears.

  "Inside me? This is no good news, sir." She cast a glance at the garden's far, dark end, and then looked up at her own bedroom and the curtains. "For, what can I do against fear that is all in my mind? There is nowhere to run and nothing to fight."